Tony’s Chocolonely - Dark Mint Candy Cane Chocolate (Sainsbury's) By @Cinabar

It is Christmas chocolate time!!! We have a bar from a brand I haven’t tried before, and it is flavoured with Candy Cane, I love peppermint so I was really looking forward to trying this large Tony’s Chocolonely - Dark Mint Candy Cane bar. It is large, it is quite heavy and quite thick. I unwrapped the chocolate and the bar itself made me smile, it was shaped liked a Christmas tree decoration (complete with hole for a thread) in a cracked chocolate background. There was no way this was going on our tree this was going in my mouth!

I broke a piece off the Tony’s Chocolonely Dark Mint Candy Cane bar, which was easier said than done. This chocolate is seriously chunky! The chocolate is a 51% dark chocolate, so the cocoa is rich and dark but the chocolate is still sweet. There is peppermint candy cane scattered throughout the bar, and it adds a decent amount of peppermint and crunch but honestly as a mint fan I would have liked more. Due to the distribution of bits some bites of chocolate were wonderfully minty others were too mild. For me though the biggest problem with the bar, the thing that would stop me buying it again, is the size of the pieces. The chocolate is too thick, it is annoying to break off and not fun to chew on, if it was half the thickness it might not look so amazing but I would enjoy it a lot more!

(Home) Cinema Snacks - Tesco & Cofresh Shells, Grills & Chips (@NLi10)

Lockdown is fast turning into my childhood - going out is not an option, so we stay in with bad 80s movies and cheap snacks.  The difference is that the movies appear on demand from the Disney Plus service instead of the Video Rental shop!

The snacks are fairly similar, cheap brands from local shops - imitations of the real thing?

Well - for these they are both pretty great.  We already know that Cofresh make the best easily available spicy crisps round here - and that these lemon chili shell grills are amazing.  The discount versions of KP skips always seem to have a sharper flavour and while they aren't quite as melty this has never really proved to be too much of a problem for me.

Tapioca and Potato based goodness - and both very much veggie.

Look how presentable they are - all ready for the Strictly Grand Final on Saturday (I'll be watching Eurovision on YouTube Live - but I suspect most people won't be)

And while these were picked up especially we already had this scrunched up bag of chips - but not like the Americans - oh no!

Look how stick like these are

These always felt like the smart crisp to get - maximum filling bulk for your money - and as such still have a sweet spot (savoury spot) in my heart.

Hopefully I won't finish them all by the weekend.  I'm making no promises!

Christmas Pudding McVitie’s Digestives (Asda) By @SpectreUK

I recently wrote about McVitie's VIB Classic Caramel Bliss biscuits and rather enjoyed them. Cinabar recently wrote about their Gingerbread flavoured biscuits, and enjoyed them so much she refused to share them. She has since bought me a packet on a two for one deal, and then hidden her packet away from me. Not all that Christmassy of her is it? They must be good. Anyway, these Christmas Pudding McVitie's Digestives are milk chocolate coated digestives with Christmas pudding flavouring. I've been keeping them back to write about them closer to Christmas for obvious reasons. So what do they taste like?

 On opening the packet of these Christmas Pudding McVitie's Digestives they look pretty much just like any other chocolate biscuit. There is a slight fruitiness in the chocolate digestive aroma on pealing back the wrapper. There is the usual digestive biscuit crunchiness on first bite, and then the smooth and creamy milk chocolate coating mixes in with the taste. There is then a fruitiness and a warming touch of cinnamon spice in the flavour. I'm not sure if these Christmas Pudding McVitie's Digestives taste of a Christmas Pudding per se, but I certainly received a good dose of fruitiness, such as fruit cake flavours and a touch of cinnamon spice at the end of every crunchy chocolate biscuit.

These Christmas Pudding McVitie's Digestives are very moreish indeed and definitely taste of Christmas. They are very flavoursome biscuits and I'd certainly have them again. I ate the packet over three nights and didn't share one of them with anyone! Ha…! The first night I had a few biscuits with a mug of tea. The second night I had some more biscuits dipping them in creamy vanilla ice cream, which was pretty much food of the Gods. The next night I had them with a pint of Titanic Plum Porter. Mmm… now that's Christmas!

Information on the packet; Each 14.7g biscuit contains 73 calories, with 3.4g of fat, 4.1g of sugars, and 0.1g of salt. Please see photograph for ingredients.

Christmas Hot Chocolate (Whittard) By @Cinabar

On Black Friday I was buying hot chocolate online. It might not be everyone's first choice for a bargain but I frankly I’m a fan of expensive hot chocolate and an online discount makes it more acceptable. Plus Christmas time means Christmas hot chocolate which is also one of my favourite things, usually because of the addition of cinnamon, my favourite spice.

This new Christmas Hot Chocolate from Whittard this year is flavoured with nutmeg, cinnamon and spiced plum which sounded like a winning combination to me.

I made the drink with hot milk and it mixed up easily. Some of the Whittard milk chocolate drinks are quite strong and almost taste like dark chocolate but the fruit flavour from the plum sweetened the drink and helped make it taste softer. It was quite different but worked well. The cinnamon and nutmeg were a delight too, they added a warming spice and it was a nice Winter touch to the drink. It might be expensive hot chocolate but the drinks from Whittard really are quality, this Christmas Hot Chocolate is no exception. All I need is to get some additions for the drink of whipped cream, marshmallows and then stick a Christmas movie on for the full effect.

Heston Night Before Christmas Mince Pies (Waitrose) By @Cinabar

Oh Heston I never quite know what to make of you. I like different, this blog is helped because I like different things and new varieties but the items from Heston can go either way. I have never once eaten a mince pie and thought that needs carrot but here we are, Heston thinks they do. Or at least he thinks it would be fun to add a bit of carrot for Rudolph and Sherry for Santa and include them in the recipe as part of a Christmas Eve theme. I bought them even thought I was unsure because well, what else could I do.

Inside the box are six pies, they are quite large and don’t quite look like tradition mince pies, they are covered over in pastry, and are flatter than usual. There was also a sachet of smoked sugar, I don’t how that fits into the Christmas Eve theme, Santa in a smokey chimney perhaps? I started by opening that and sprinkling it on, the smell was a little too strong of smoke for my liking but I was trying to buy into the moment.

Thankfully the sugar didn’t add too much smoke to the flavour, the pastry is thick but sweet and tasty. The mince meat came with a hit of sherry and was delicious, there was a delicate bitter edge which I think was carrot and these worked. Mainly because the smoked sugar wasn’t too strong! Heston I apologise for doubting you, this one was a success. You made it sound exciting but didn’t really mess with the traditional flavours too much and this worked for me. I would actually buy them again!